Randall Beach: Roadside attractions abound at New Haven Museum

Published 8:19 pm, Saturday, November 12, 2016

Photo: Peter Hvizdak — New Haven Register

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Guest curator Mary M. Donohue during an advance tour of the upcoming exhibition, “Road Trip!” Thursday, November 10, 2016 at the New Haven Museum. Donohue sits in a old diner booth by dining artifacts and an original Clark’s Dairy jukebox. “Road Trip!” includes vintage photos of quirky roadside attractions, souvenirs and memorabilia from Greater New Haven residents as well as artifacts from other museums. less

Guest curator Mary M. Donohue during an advance tour of the upcoming exhibition, “Road Trip!” Thursday, November 10, 2016 at the New Haven Museum. Donohue sits in a old diner booth by dining ... more

Photo: Peter Hvizdak — New Haven Register

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“The Negro Motorist Green Book,” a guide listing welcoming businesses for African-Americans during segregation, will be in the upcoming exhibition, “Road Trip!” at the New Haven Museum. less

“The Negro Motorist Green Book,” a guide listing welcoming businesses for African-Americans during segregation, will be in the upcoming exhibition, “Road Trip!” at the New Haven ... more

Photo: Peter Hvizdak — New Haven Register

Randall Beach: Roadside attractions abound at New Haven Museum

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If you love diners, funky motels, plastic swizzle sticks and other Americana tchotchkes, you’re in for a fun ride.

Mary M. Donohue, who guest-curated the exhibition after getting input from New Haven area residents and three other museums, invited me in for a sneak preview last Thursday. Many of the exhibits weren’t in place (it opens Nov. 22) but she gave me the flavor of what the public will be seeing.

When Donohue goes on a road trip, she doesn’t come back empty-handed. Unlike what her mother used to do, she doesn’t throw away any of the items picked up along the way.

And so this exhibition includes souvenirs from Donohue’s home: a picnic basket that belonged to her grandmother, a thermos that her husband’s father used for all his camping and fishing trips, and about 100 of the postcards she has collected from motels and eateries.

Many of the other items were loaned by people in or near New Haven who returned from their travels with evocative treasures such as shot glasses, ashtrays and matchbook covers bearing the names of oft-forgotten places. One of the glass cases features matchbook covers from the Tasty Toasty Luncheonette, long ago at 80 Temple St., across from the Edw. Malley Co. department store; the Hearst Castle in California; and the Flamingo Hotel “in exciting Las Vegas.”

If you continue to stare into that large case, you will spot a viewfinder from the National Baseball Hall of Fame in Cooperstown, New York, a Heinz pickle refrigerator magnet, a Howard Johnson’s bank and a Hershey Kisses truck.

Nearby is another display case with souvenirs from the 1964-65 World’s Fair (remember that? I sure do!). Look, there’s a paperweight of the New York City skyline; a set of plastic appetizer forks; a plastic “Pieta” from the Vatican Pavilion, and a comic book titled “The Flintstones at the New York World’s Fair.”

Then Donohue walked me over to a corner and pointed to something dear to my heart: a miniature table jukebox from Clark’s Dairy, the beloved Whitney Avenue restaurant that closed in 2010. I can remember sitting at the Clark’s counter, leafing through the musical selections on those mini-jukes. Maybe I even used the one now on display; its tunes include Bruce Spring­steen’s “Pink Cadillac” and Bad Company’s “Rock ‘N’ Roll Fantasy.”

Clark’s Pizza and Restaurant still operates next door to the old Clark’s Dairy site and one of the family’s owners, Joanna Mihalakos, is a history buff, Donohue noted. When Donohue eyeballed that mini-juke on display in the Clark’s window, she walked in and asked Mihalakos if she could borrow it for the exhibition. No problem!

That historic item sits atop a 1930s bench seat and formica table top from the American Diner Museum of Lincoln, Rhode Island. Donohue describes this as “a virtual museum,” since there is no building displaying its contents.

Alongside this diner set-up is a large, detailed blueprint for the original Elm City Diner at the corner of Chapel and Howe streets (now the Tandoor Restaurant). Donohue noted the diner is listed on the National Register of Historic Places as part of the Dwight Street Historic District. (I informed her that it was a decidedly dicey place in the 1970s.)

The exhibition is anchored by about a dozen large-scale photos from Richard Longstreth’s book “Road Trip: Roadside America, From Custard’s Last Stand to the Wigwam Restaurant.” Donohue said this book was “the jumping-off point” for the “Road Trip!” effort.

Longstreth, an architectural historian and professor, drove more than 60,000 miles during the 1970s, racing against time to document the “mom and pop” motels, diners, gas stations and oddball amusements on our roads before they were demolished for interstate highways and other development projects.

In his book, he wrote: “I still enjoy driving long distances and still stop to record vestiges of an earlier era, but most of the things that abounded 40 years ago have gone.”

Indeed, the “Road Trip!” exhibition commemorates the 50th anniversary of the National Historic Preservation Act, establishing incentives and safeguards to preserve our historic places. You know what, even a diner or hot dog joint can be historic.

Donohue has assembled on one of the walls a collection of her own photos showing roadside sites she thinks belong on the National Register of Historic Places to help protect them from bulldozers. These include: Blackie’s Hot Dog Stand in Cheshire, Guida’s Restaurant in Middlefield, the Makris Diner in Wethersfield, the Quaker Diner in West Hartford and the Maple Motel in Newington.

“They’re all part of America’s 100-year-old love affair with the automobile,” Donohue noted.

“It’s reminiscent of the 1960s,” Donohue said. “I love the boomerang motif on the formica tabletop.”

When the exhibition opens, visitors will be able to sit in those cushioned seats and watch videos shot of the local residents who donated items. They reminisce about their travel experiences. (Soon this will be available on YouTube.)

Our country’s social history is reflected in a displayed publication not known to many Americans, especially whites: “The Negro Motorist Green Book.”

Until the late 1960s, African-American travelers could never know whether they would be served at restaurants or allowed to rent rooms at motels or welcomed at beauty parlors, clubs and service stations. This held true all over the country. And so in 1936 Victor H. Green, an African-American mailman, published a guide book listing businesses that would accommodate all races.

Green’s first book was confined to New York City but gradually he expanded its reach.

“New Haven was well-represented in it,” Donohue noted. The exhibition has a page from the 1947 book posted on a wall. The welcoming businesses in New Haven included the Monterey Club on Dixwell Avenue, several beauty parlors and two hotels, one of them the Hotel Portsmouth.

On a lighter note, there are those postcards loaned by Donohue. Some of them have the original messages on the back. Flip over the card from Ted Hilton’s Most Unique Resort in America, located in Moodus, and you can read: “Dear Emma and Jimmy, we are having a very nice time. We’ll see you next week. Love, Angie and John — we miss little John­ie.”

Some of the other postcards include a photo of the Wilbur Cross Parkway at what was then called the West Rock Tunnel (now the Heroes’ Tunnel), the New Haven Motor Inn in that same area, the Aroma Tourist Court in Berlin, the Friendly Acres Motor Court in Newington and Captain Jack’s Blue Pool at Happy Acres in Middlefield.

Those were the days of happy trails.

(“Road Trip!” will run Nov. 22 through June 17, 2017m at the museum, 114 Whitney Ave. On Nov. 19, there will be a first look at it and then enjoy a party with Donohue and Longstreth; tickets are $25. See http://newhavenmuseum.org/roadtriprevelry/ or call 203-562-4183.)